6 December 2012

Plot to kill Adams to feature in report out Wednesday on murder of civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane

» John Hedges

An Phoblacht Editor

‘Whilst the focus of my report is Patrick Finucane’s murder, it was appropriate for me to examine it in its proper context. Among the surrounding key issues is the role that was played by the British Army agent, Brian Nelson.’

THE 1987 murder plot by unionist
death squads to assassinate Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams will feature in the
report to be published next Wednesday on the shooting dead of Belfast civil
rights lawyer Pat Finucane at home, in front of his family, in February 1989.

Collusion between British state
forces – responsible to the British Government – and the death squads has
always been evident.

Gerry Adams – now a TD in the Dáil –
has called on the Irish Government to “insist, as the family does, that the
British keep to their commitment and hold a public inquiry into the killing of
Pat Finucane”.

The plot to kill Adams arises because,
as the report’s author, Sir Desmond de Silva QC, says to him in a letter:

“Whilst the focus of my report is
Patrick Finucane’s murder, it was appropriate for me to examine it in its
proper context. Among the surrounding key issues is the role that was played by
the British Army agent, Brian Nelson.

“Accordingly, I wanted you to be
aware prior to publication that my report touches on the plot by loyalist
paramilitaries to attack you in May 1987.”

Gerry Adams said this development is
really no surprise to him as collusion between British state forces and
unionist death squads was a matter of institutional practice by successive
British governments throughout the decades of conflict in the North.

“It played a part in the attack in
March 1984 in which I and three others were shot and it has already been
reported that the British were aware of the planned to kill me in May 1987,”
Gerry Adams said.

“The role of Brian Nelson and in
particular of Brigadier Gordon Kerr (Colonel J) – pictured right – is particularly important.

“Nelson was a British military intelligence and Special Branch agent, controlled
by the Force Research Unit (FRU) run by Kerr. From 1987 Nelson was also the
UDA’s senior intelligence officer. He had responsibility for gathering the
information on which UDA/UFF gangs acted and killed Catholics.

“It is now a matter of public record
that Nelson was given information by his British handlers who also reorganised
his intelligence files.

“But he wasn’t the only British agent
operating within the UDA. The leader of the UDA group that carried out the
killing was a Special Branch agent; the man who was convicted of killing Pat
Finucane was a Special Branch agent; the UDA man who supplied the gun used was
a Special Branch agent; and Nelson, who provided the information, was working
for [the British Army unit] FRU.

“The Finucane family have demanded a
full independent public inquiry to get to the truth of what happened to Pat
Finucane. This was agreed by the Irish and British governments at Weston Park
in 2001.

“The Irish Government should insist,
as the family does, that the British keep to their commitment and hold a public
inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane.”

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